I have long enjoyed the 1980 Christopher Cross song Ride Like the Wind. Listening to it this morning I realized that one of the reasons I like it so much is the backing vocals by the estimable Michael McDonald (he of the Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, and a successful solo career).

Oliver and I listened to the song this morning in the car: McDonald’s contribution–we counted–amounts to only four utterances of “Such a long way to go…” Nonetheless, without those the song wouldn’t be as delightful as it is.

Like salt, sometimes all you need is a little, but without that little the food doesn’t taste nearly as good.

(Clip from The Very Best of Christopher Cross, 2002)

What went unreported in this 2003 post about dinner out in Bilbao was that the night ended with the poovalanche of all poovalanches in the Oliver department of the family.

What Catherine would chime in with at this point, were this a dinner party and not a blog post (and were she still alive), would be that, in my inebriated state, I was of no help at all, becoming obsessed with side issues that had nothing to do with the central challenge of sluices of poo leaking out everywhere.

There were poovalanches before that night in Bilbao—the great Christmas Poovalanche of 2000, in The Gap at Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto comes to mind—and poovalanches after that night in Bilbao, but that night in Bilbao, at least in my sodden memory, was as poovalanche as it ever got.

My favourite interviews are those conducted by interviewers with nothing to prove; it’s why I enjoy listening to Alec Baldwin so much: he’s famous (and infamous) enough that he’s generally the equal of any of his subjects.

I enjoy this Adam Savage interview of artist Tom Sachs for the same reasons: two weird master creative fabricators in conversation.

I was sad to read this morning of the death of Jean Doherty.

I worked with Jean over the years in many different capacities, most recently through the PEI Home and School Federation, when I was President and Jean was handling communications for the Department of Education.

Jean was that rare public servant who never developed a thick skin: she was universally helpful and kind, and genuinely believed in the work she was doing, and the benefits of clear and effective communication. I always enjoyed our interactions.

She will be missed.

Back during my brief flowering as a writer of comedic songs–Kitchen Utensil Love, Gay Squirrels, etc.–I wrote a song about Sesame Street, the lyrics of which evade me now, other than “Mr. Hooper is Dead, Grover is a Alcoholic.”

I thought about that song when I came across this passage in The New Yorker in the story How We Got to Sesame Street:

For Kamp, “Sesame Street” peaked in 1983, after the death of Will Lee, the actor who played Mr. Hooper, the neighborhood grocer. Lee, a former member of a radical theatre troupe, had been called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the nineteen-fifties and been blacklisted from television; “Sesame Street” had become his theatrical home. He was much admired by the rest of the cast, and the writers decided to reckon, on air, with grief. Big Bird, told that Mr. Hooper is dead, wants to know when he’s coming back. “Big Bird, when people die they don’t come back,” a cast member says, softly. Big Bird tilts his head, yellow feathers fluttering, and whispers, unbelieving, “Ever?”

I remember that episode of Sesame Street like it was yesterday: the stunning absence of Mr. Hooper, Big Bird uttering that line. I’m pretty sure that Mr. Hooper cum Will Lee’s death was the first time I remember “death” being a thing.

Regular readers will know of my longtime aversion to the use of generic stock photography to illustrate news stories. I’ve written about this here and here and here.

I will make an exception to this aversion today, however: in the CBC News story MPs urged to demand the names of Canadians behind offshore tax shelters a photo of people appearing to walk on water, on a beach in the Isle of Man, was used as the illustration.

It’s an Associated Press photo taken by Raphael Satter that appears in news stories as early as 2014, stories ranging from We can’t believe it’s not summer! Britain will bask in sunshine until Wednesday (but then it’s back to normal at the weekend) to KPMG pressed for details on Isle of Man tax scheme.

What I love about its use in this particular CBC story is that the photo is, vaguely, related to the content of the story, which mentions the Isle of Man, but, more so, that it’s a playful take on “offshore tax shelter.” Indeed one assumes that journalist Harvey Cashore may have simply searched the CBC image library for “Isle of Man offshore” and this was the first image that popped up.

Superstar bookseller Adam, at The Bookmark, turned me on to the presence of special edition Blackwing x Independent Bookstore Day pencils in the shop. They are delightful. I bought two.

Liam Neeson is the star of a new movie, The Marksman, which is described like this:

Along the US/Mexico border in Arizona, Jim Hanson a rancher and Vietnam war vet, is going through a tough time. His beloved wife just passed away from cancer and the bank is about to foreclose on his vast property.

I have, as it happens, been on something of a Liam Neeson streaming kick of late, having watched all or parts of the three Taken films, Honest Thief, and, last night, part of The Next Three Days. I feel like that description of The Marksman, with small variations, could be used to describe any of those films.

Neeson plays troubled character (veteran, retired CIA operative, retired bank robber, prison escape expert, etc.) with unusual moral clarity; he is either divorced or widowed, and is possibly in love with his ex- or late-wife.

People are after him.

Action.

I wonder if he loves the roles, or simply has very expensive tastes.

Upcoming roles:

• The Ice Road: After a remote Canadian diamond mine collapses, an ice driver leads an impossible rescue mission to save the lives of trapped miners despite thawing waters.
• Blacklight: Troubled repairman off the FBI books is tasked with pulling undercover agents out of dangerous situations.
• Memory: Liam Neeson will play an expert assassin with a reputation for discreet precision.

These sound about right.

As Ton has been travelling vicariously by revisiting travel photos, I have been travelling vicariously by revisiting travel blog posts. Like this one, about our 21 say stay in France:

Twenty-one days isn’t enough time to really understand anything about a place — we’ve been on Prince Edward Island for twelve years and we still don’t understand. Most of what I relate above is more about comfort and familiarity than about realizing French life, culture and history.

But I’ve a strong belief that culture is found not in the monuments and the museums but in the substance of everyday life: road signs, roof tiles, park benches, the little twist of the bag that keeps the croissants from falling out, saying bonjour to everyone you meet as you walk.

Living in the midst of what to us is a strange yet vaguely familiar land, and achieving some level of comfort and familiarity, has allowed us, if not to understand France, at least to realize that there is something here to be understood: that the wine and the land and the architecture and the parks and the croissant bag twist and the church and the war and the cheese and the strange opening hours are all part of a complex, interdependent system. This is not something unique to France, of course; it’s just that this system in this country has an integrity, a maturity, and tremendous sensual appeal that makes it an excellent selling tool for opening the mind to consider other.

If all Oliver remembers from the trip he took to France when he was four is a vague memory of that notion, then I think we will have done our job as parents well.

and then, a few days later, still in France:

But I found Au Bonheur des Jardins oddly alluring.

Somehow being amidst something so disturbingly familiar but in French (and thus completely without chance of recruitment) made for a very pleasant afternoon. I sat back and drank my mint tea (leaves left in, of course) and ate my brownie, and just watched it all unfold. I even screwed up my courage and bought some artisanal cheese (very good, from the Champagne region) and some handmade books (cookbooks about basil, eggs and olive oil).

Catherine, frighteningly at home in any situation, simply dove in. She and Oliver made handmade paper, fished for recycled stuffed toys, and watched the mimes up close. She bought some myrtle juice (we’re still not sure what a myrtle is) and some more cheese and some weird substance from which she can purportedly make tea.

Travel together was our métier, and that experience in France set the tone for many adventures that followed.

I decided that we needed to upgrade our home cinema game, which isn’t hard to do given that it’s built around a $129 projector. So I invested in a $34 screen. Worth it for the packaging alone!